Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Holidays - A Pacific Rim Adventure
Have your ever daydreamed about the perfect motorcycle vacation? One that includes spectacular scenery, luxurious accommodations with terrific views, mile after mile of twisty blacktop through pristine forests, your choice of sport touring bike, gourmet meals where you can order anything from the menu, daily bike washes, and a chase vehicle with your bags delivered to your room each night? Throw in visor cleaning at each rest stop and very attentive tour guides and there is not much more to include in your daydream.
Could such tours exist? They do and my wife, Cathy, and I recently had the good fortune to experience the Pacific Rim tour of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, hosted by Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Holidays, Ltd. The Pacific Rim tour started in Whistler, home of the 2010 Winter Olympics, and wound its way across Vancouver Island with a wonderful variety of scenery, twolane roads, ferry rides (four of them) and spectacular sunsets. The first day included two ferry passages (bikes are first-on and first-off) and culminated in the waterfront town of Lund literally at the end of B.C.
True to their promises the tour guides delivered our luggage from the chase vehicle to our room (just like on a cruise ship). The porch of our room provided a magnificent view of the inner passage to Alaska. That evening we enjoyed a spectacular view of the sunset from the deck of the hotel’s restaurant as we dined with the entire tour group.
Dinner was wonderful as were the breakfasts and many of the lunches that were included in the tour price. Also included are the BMW and Triumph sport touring motorcycles that you can reserve when you make your tour plans. Our bike was a silver BMW R1200RT with full cases and electrics. After dinner we noticed that the tour guides were dutifully giving the bikes the first of their daily cleanings and inspections prior to the next day’s ride. The tour guides, led by the President of the tour company, Brandon Douglas, took excellent care of us and the motorcycles.
On the second day we checked out from the hotel in the morning, leaving our luggage outside our room and came down to find the bikes all neatly lined up and ready for our departure. We headed south on a quick ride through the trees to catch the morning departure of the ferry across the inner passage to Vancouver Island. Departing first from the ferry (the way it should be!) we traversed the pine forested mountains of Victoria Island (more than twice the size of Long Island) on the way to the Pacific Rim coastline and the town of Tofino.
Known for its rugged rocky coastline and broad driftwood strewn beaches, Tofino is also famous for winter storm watching. A number of the hotels are built on the rocky coastline with windows and decks available to fully experience the Pacific storms as they crash into the shoreline.
We were a little early for the storm season and thankfully the weather was pretty nice. One sign along the Pacific Trail Highway did send a shiver up our spines. It read: Tsunami Evacuation Route. Luckily we didn’t have to follow the sign’s advice. After two nights in Tofino we followed the twisty and recently re-paved roads through the pineforested mountains to Victoria, Western Canada’s oldest city and the provincial capital of British Columbia. Victoria has one of the mildest climates in Western Canada with flowers blooming year round.
On the way to Victoria we stopped in the little town of Coombs, famous for the ‘Goats on the Roof ’ Old Country Market. Where else can you browse through a gourmet market and enjoy your favorite eats on the deck outside while friendly goats graze on the grass covered roof just above you? The town is off the beaten path, so the townspeople decided to make it a tourist destination and bring in the people. It worked. This stop was typical of the local color that the tour guides injected into our daily rides.
Riding on to Victoria, we arrived in front of our hotel to be treated with a stunning view of the inner harbor, the Parliament building and the historic Empress Hotel. The dinner in Victoria was heavenly (fresh seafood can definitely be enjoyed in British Columbia) and we had a free day to tour the historic town.
The next day our ride meandered through the coastline towns and neighborhoods on the way to the final ferry ride back to Vancouver. Along the way we saw ‘Mile Zero’ of the Trans-Canadian Highway, the world’s tallest totem pole and took in a view of Washington State across the inlet to the south. After a ferry ride on a ship large enough to be a cruise liner we journeyed into Vancouver, experiencing the only traffic of the entire tour and were treated to a luxurious night in the Black River Casino. That night we had our final dinner together as a tour group, a great way to highlight the many excellent roads, rides and experiences on a motorcycle tour to be truly remembered. Daydreams can be achieved and even exceeded.
Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Holidays, Ltd. organizes many guided motorcycleholiday tours through Western Canada and the Western United States. They maintain their own stable of motorcycles (mainly Triumphs and BMWs) to keep their tour prices reasonable. If you have ever had daydreams about the perfect motorcycle vacation, you should take a look at what Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Holidays has to offer.
Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Holidays
604.983.0126
888.299.5534 toll free N.America
0800.085.8804 toll free from UK
Published March 29, 2019
By Brian Horais
With the kind permission of BMW Owners News/BMW MOA (Originally published January 2010)
